An article on the Telegraph website suggests that TV is to blame for the floods.
Groundforce et al are, in my opinion, responsible for may negative aspects of today's landscaping market, but saying they are responsible for the flooding is pushing it too far.
If Louse Gray had watched the programme she'd probably observed that many, if not most, of Groundforce's gardens used a substantial amount of gravel.
Gravel, as most will know, contributes to a surface's permeablilty meaning water can conduct hydraulically through to the subsoil and away.
Today's product manufacturers have a legal obligation and a moral duty of care to conform to SUDS. We are moving in the right direction. In the 60's, 70,s and 80's this wasn't the case. I can remember many solid concrete or tarmac drives, and later sealed inter-locking paving blocks, covering drives and patios.
Even before the environmental push into gardens gathered pace (certainly before the internet anyway) I and many others ripped out concrete and replaced it with plants, grass and gravel.
Most of Louse Gray's article talks of houses being built on flood plains. This is by far the biggest contributor to flooded houses.
Greed and poor planning by government and councils, not poor planning by landscapers, causes the problem.
Flooding isn't a new thing.
The flood which devastated Boscastle in 2004 started 2 miles up on the hills, a result of saturated soil just not being able to absorb any more water. There were no drives, car parks or gardens to blame. Even the Telegraph itself made no mention of poorly landscaped gardens being the cause.
Views: 81
Replies
I'll tell you his responsible for flooding, my 4 year old son and his mate Alfie. By filling our pond with a half a can of creocote and ensuring an emergency empty and refill operation!
On a serious note, I haven't reads the article but that's seriously pushing it surely? i'd like to look at ways we can encourage and help clients to be water responsible and we always look to push more planting in gardens and soft landscaping. But compared to developers, just a drop in the ocean.
There seems to be this whole attitude that people buying new build house aren't interested in gardens, so the gardens are small, strange shapes and badly built. I'm a firm believer that there is a garden design for everyone that will inspire them to get outside and make the most of what space they do have. So why don't developers put more thought into the garden element? Greed?
Blimey, worms and cans and all that!
yes anything that is not natural : gravel , turf, soil, wood will cause flooding and other environmental problems such as making concrete ( uses more energy to make its own size).
planting trees , laying grass, plants, adding soil / nutrients / horse manure , adding hedges all
aid the natural world that we live in. concrete/tarmac/metal/bricks do much sometimes unseen harm.
i can Hadley see decking causing flooding. as for new build houses etc the top water is supposed to go into soak aways. i partly blame the council for not cleaning the road gullies out for the flooding, the other week on a road on a hill it was running over the top of them for about a half a mile and flooding the road at the bottom
It's not the celebs' fault that clients (or rather probable clients) believe it is easy to lay patios and decks. It is irresponsible to not show how to correctly install them to take water away to an existing soakaway or a newly built soakaway ore drain, but then I've relaid patios installed by professionals who don't know what turn and bubble meant and thought it was okay to drain to grass.
People hear and see what they want to see, so if there is any fault is it not those amateurs who think they know best by compacting a foot of hardcore before laying a patio?
I agree with your sentiment Phil but stress that it is nonetheless a primary responsibility of the designer and landscaper to fully consider water management of the site on which they are to work - this is an important point which we should not simply ignore and assume responsibility lies solely with others.
Unfortunately it seems that this weather of late is a sign of more common things to come: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/top-scottish-scientist...
One point that also seems to be missed persistently is that the mass of previously green-belt suburban development of housing, has added an enormous amount of impermeable surface area shedding water into the public systems: while patios and driveways may well contribute in part; surely the collective of new roof surfaces and new road surfaces contribute the majority share.
Green roofs and sustainable drainage for public road systems have been adopted in many European and North American cities to good effect, vastly reducing the flood risks. This would appear to be an area where urban land management responsibilities are shared across public and private sectors in the UK without any acknowledgement of that fact or, thus, a cohesive, sensible strategy to tackle the issues.
One example from Philadelphia: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/06/120606/philadelphia...
Nicky Patterson, Landscape Designer @ GardenImprovements.com (twitter: @gardndesign)
hi guys
i dont think that it help when you see these so called landscapers builders ect.. that have no clue about suds or drainage and dont even have and training. these people dont install drainange or dont even know that it is now the law on a driveway unless its permable paving IE marshalls priora paving.
why is our industry not regulated like plumbers Gas Safe ect..... this would then cut out all the cowboys that give us as bad name
yes this would not totally stop flooding but at least it would help if everbody did there bit.
Tim.
Slightly outside the landscape industry and therefore not totally familar with SUDS or regs applicable. However, many of the problems must arise from dumping rain water into the sewage systems, whereas dispersal through a soak away would be the obvious answer, when land conditions allow. This doesnt of course get around the problem of the home d-i-y-er or cowboy tradesman and no doubt would encourage both with making legit businesses costs higher. Care needs to be taken on suggesting solutions. So...
Of course, building away from flood plains, but for larger gardens there would also, I believe need to be a relaxation of housing density targets
This is definitely a hot topic and there is some interesting debate going on! The bottom line is that most people require some form of hard landscaping around their property in order to live their lives. Many of us would simply not have seen able to park near our properties for the past 3-4 weeks if we did not have a Driveway...our cars would have sunk into our saturated lawns! Similarly many of us would have had to wade through a swamp to take the rubbish out or to get to our sheds and garages if we did not have patios or pathways.
But it is the responsibility of the homeowner to make sure that the water that lands within the boundaries of the property is dealt with responsibly. The key is balanced garden design using soft & hard landscaping and drainage to manage rain water run-off. There is guidance on the different options available (http://www.marshalls.co.uk/transform/_Content/pdf/sustainable-drive...) As Tim mentions Marshalls has products that make this easier like Priora Permeable Paving and Bioverse Grassguard. If anyone wants more info on them we can send you some...